Referring to FIG. 1, U.S. Pat. No. 5,653,598 discloses an LGA (land grid array) electrical connector and a conductive terminal employed thereby, in which a tightening member (not shown) is generally used to clamp the electrical connector between a packaged integrated circuit (IC) 8 and a circuit board 9 so as to establish electrical connection without the need for a soldering step.
A bottom side of the integrated circuit 8 is formed with conductive contact pads 81 that are arranged in an array, and the circuit board 9 also has conductive contact pads 91 provided thereon at positions corresponding to the contact pads 81 of the integrated circuit 8. The integrated circuit 8 and the circuit board 9 are respectively located on two opposite upper and lower sides of the electrical connector. In addition, a plurality of terminal receiving cavities 61 are provided in an insulative housing 6 of the electrical connector and are arranged in an array form.
Each terminal receiving cavity 61 is disposed to receive a conductive terminal 7. The conductive terminal 7 includes two spaced-apart resilient arms 71, 72 and a bent portion 73 connected to one end of each of the resilient arms 71, 72 and having a measure of resiliency. Each of the resilient arms 71, 72 has a free end. A nose 711, 721 is formed at the free end to contact the contact pad 81, 91 of the integrated circuit 8 or the circuit board 9. A support arm 712, 722 extends from one nose 711 or 721 toward the other nose 721 or 711. When the integrated circuit 8 and the circuit board 9 are forced to approach the electrical connector, the conductive terminal 7 will be pressed so that the two resilient arms 71, 72 displace toward each other such that the support arms 712, 722 contact each other, thereby establishing a signal transmission path.
However, there are drawbacks with the aforesaid electrical connector. For instance, when the bent portion 73 of the conductive terminal 7 deforms, lateral deformation may also occur at the same time such that the two support arms 712, 722 move toward each other without contacting. Even though the wall surface of the terminal receiving cavity 61 can limit lateral displacement of the support arms 712, 722, the support arms 712, 722 may just scrape the wall surface of the terminal receiving cavity 61, without coming into contact with each other. Therefore, the aforesaid structure is quite unsatisfactory in terms of signal transmission stability.
Hence, the inventor has proposed another solution with respect to such an LGA electrical connector construction.